While ever-popular, the sport of skiing is commonly a source of serious injuries to the ankles and legs of participants as the result of falls. The possibility of such injuries is exacerbated by the fact that the length of the skis fastened to the skier's boots produce mechanical advantages that are operative during falls, which greatly magnify the forces acting on the boots, and therefore, the forces operative on the lower parts of the skier's limbs.
A skier's boot is generally attached to his ski with a ski-binding normally consisting of a toe piece and a heel piece, both of which are permanently attached to the ski. The binding is fastened to the skier's boot when the skier places the front of his boot in the toe piece, and the heel of the boot in the heel piece. A latch in the heel piece is thereupon released, forcing the heel piece against the heel of the boot and securely locking the boot in the binding.
In the past, many attempts have been made to minimize the dangers from falls, for example, through the use of "safety" bindings which hold the skier's boots to the skis only up to the point at which the bindings are subjected to forces of such magnitude that if sustained, injury to the skier's limbs would result.
A number of safety bindings have been designed that involve force-operated mechanisms which allow release of the boot from the binding toe piece, following the application of a predetermined excessive force of the boot against the toe piece. However, many such bindings are relatively sensitive to damage, and are unable to withstand the rigors associated with prolonged skiing use.
Furthermore, many safety toe piece bindings necessitate relatively involved manufacturing and assembly procedures, and consequently ential considerable cost. An additional problem commonly experienced with the more complex mechanisms arises from the friction inherent in the interaction of the considerable number of components making up the binding. Such multiple interaction, and the resulting friction, often makes the components of the bindings resist movement relative to each other, and therefore, causes the bindings to be dangerously insensitive and unreliable.
A further disadvantage of safety toe pieces of the prior art is found in the fact that their release functions can only respond to excessive forces imposed in limited directions, allowing the toe pieces to encounter dangerous forces from other directions without being released.